


Heart's Fear

by JulianGreystoke



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adamant Fortress, Fear, fears, graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulianGreystoke/pseuds/JulianGreystoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astlyr and her team have fallen from the top of Adamant Fortress and into the Fade.  Now they face all of their worst fears, but the demon doesn't seem able to figure out Astlyr's.  She's not afraid of spiders, and she doesn't see her name on a grave stone, but perhaps it does have a handle on her truest fear after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's Fear

**Author's Note:**

> While Astlyr is the star of 'The New Ways of Old Gods' you do not need to have read that story to enjoy this as this tale takes place during the game.
> 
> SPOILERS for Adamant. Obviously.

Heart's Fear

 

The Fade. There was always something so dank about it. Like someone's old cellar that hadn't been visited in years. It smelled stale, blackish water dripped on her from nowhere, and it was always cold. At least it had been the two times she had been bodily inside it.

Open a tear, tumble right in.

Astyr sighed as she plunged her blade into another spider's massive abdomen. This section of the Fade was apparently ruled by a Demon of Fear. She could almost hear Solas correct her in her head. “Spirit. Not Demon.” Well, whichever it was, it was doing its best to terrorize her people. Young Cole had been the most upset, though not because of the spiders, or the fact that they kept having to wade through icy water. He hugged himself and spoke too fast. Only Solas seemed able to keep him calm. She wished she was better with the spirit boy. She cut a glance towards him. He was hugging himself, bloody daggers still clutched in slim, boney hands which were latticed with white scars. His eyes met hers for a flickering moment, then turned back to the ground.

While Solas put on a good showing, Astlyr knew him a bit better than she did Cole. This was the man who, for reasons of his own, had sat beside her while she slept, forced from conciseness by the anchor on her hand. The elf who had already taught her so much about the Fade, yet he was obviously not at home in it.

Faring best of all was Cassandra. The stoic warrior grimaced as she slew another spider. She had already shared that she did not see the giant arachnids that Astlyr did, but instead undead corpses covered in festering wounds and crawling with maggots.

Another spider slithered down on a web of unseen origin and waggled long legs in her direction. Astlyr raised her shield and blade. A quick swing was all it took to sever three of the spider's legs and a blast of fire magic from Solas had the creature writhing in a pitiful heap as it died. Why spiders? Astlyr wondered as she sloshed through another puddle of brackish water. She had long since given up on salvaging her boots from this experience. Why had the Demon chosen spiders for her when she so clearly did not fear them?

The party moved on, keeping together nervously, tightly. Spirits attacked them, strange stories were revealed to them. They pressed on through the gloom, intent of slaying the creature which had them all in its trap. Its own web of fears.

“Is that... a grave yard?” Cassandra asked, squinting and pointing with her blade.

Asltyr drew her own sword free of the chest of a lesser demon she had just slain and followed her fellow swordswoman's gesture. “It looks to be,” Astlyr agreed as she moved closer, sloshing through the rancid muck for reach the grey island, which wore a flock of grave stones like a decoration.

“What are these?” Cassandra leaned down and peered at the first. “Iron Bull... Madness,” she read slowly.

Astlyr moved amongst the stones, keeping half her eye on Cole. He seemed distressed, but no more so than he had been through their Fade journey. Astlyr had enough sense to trust the boy's bad feelings about a place, and to be wary for them. Solas hung back with Cole, clearly feigning disinterest.

Each headstone bore a name and a word or two. It didn't take Astlyr long to realize that these were fears. Perhaps the worst fears of her friends and fellow fighters in the Inquisition. “Dorian: Temptation. Vivienne: Irrelevance. Blackwall: Himself.” she read in a low tone so the others would not hear.

“Helplessness,” Cassandra made a scoffing sound. Clearly she had found her own stone.

Astlyr picked through more quickly. There was Cole's. Despair. She glanced up at the boy, who was still standing outside the little graveyard. Alert, aware, but pale as death. And then Solas'. “Dying Alone,” she mumbled, running her thumb over the words, cold and etched deeply into the stone. Perhaps deeper than the others. She looked up again and saw Solas' eyes staring back at her. Blue as ice, and twice as cold. She removed her hand from his grave. “I don't see one for me,” she pointed out, giving all the stones another once over. Nothing. Her brows came together. Was it possible the demon couldn't guess her fear? Perhaps the anchor kept it safe.

“Alright, it looks as though there isn't anything here,” Cassandra took charge. Astlyr let her. While she was coming into her own as Inquisitor, she still didn't feel right shouting orders at these people. Solas was still watching her, and it was making her edgy.

The group began to wade back towards the opposite shore. There was a loud hiss and at once the party was set upon by more spiders. The creatures swarmed down from above and even seemed to appear from beneath the water, though it should not have been deep enough to hide their bulky frames. The fighters were quickly surrounded.

Astlyr struggled to lock shields with Cassandra so they could shelter the mage protectively behind them. It was difficult. The water seemed to have turned to thick mud and standing still for too long had them sinking into it. “Keep moving!” It was Astlyr's turn to give orders, “make for the shore! We need better footing!”

They began to fight their way through. Solas blasted away with his magic. It flared so much brighter in the Fade, and was no less potent. Spiders fell beck, screeching. Cole was everywhere at once. Asltyr only caught glimpses of him as he used his own special powers to dart all around the enemies, slashing and stabbing with his twin blades, dealing out death.

The spiders just kept coming, and they seemed to have guessed Astlyr's intent, because they were now actively preventing the group from reaching the shore. Astlyr struck with blade and shield alike. Her metal shield was sharpened at the bottom as could cut as deeply as her sword might. Still, the constant effort of keeping herself from sinking into the muck was taking its toll. She was tiring. The Fade was winning. She snarled and drove her sword into a spider's head, between several of its beady eyes,

A sharp pain caught Astlyr off guard and she let out a yelp that was far from a heroic yawp. A spider had bitten her in the back of her knee, where the armor didn't cover. She turned and in one motion separated the spider's head from the rest of its fat body. She turned back, shield raised, ready to fight, but she was instantly distracted by a searing heat crawling up her leg from where she had been stung. “Don't let them bite you!” she called desperately as the poison crept higher. Already her leg was numb and her hip was on fire. She bit down hard on her tongue and slashed at another two spiders who were making a leap towards her. This bloody task done she looked up and gasped. How had she gotten so far from her friends? The heart of the battle had moved away from her and carried her allies with it. “Rally! To me!” she cried.

Cassandra turned first, trying to do as she was bidden. A spider slashed at her with a leg covered in razor sharp spines. It scored a hit on the woman's side, rending the edge of her armor back with a sickening squeal. Red blood splashed into the black water.

“No!” Asltyr shouted feeling the strength leave her left arm. Her shield hung low, useless. She tried to move, tried to reach her friends. Why had the spiders stopped attacking her? Wasn't she the biggest target? Did they know she was poisoned? She dragged her limp leg a few steps, letting the shield fall from her useless fingers into the muck, where it sank at once. She let out a low growl. She was stronger than this. She could overcome this and help her friends! But her other leg was numb. Somehow they still held her upright, but all she could do was stand. Stand and watch.

Solas was borne down, his magic flaring uselessly as spiders swarmed over him. She heard his cries for help. She wanted to lower her head and charge, horns first, into the deadly spider ranks, but she couldn't move a muscle. She was as dangerous as a newborn kitten. The mage's magic stopped. He was gone, carried down into the mire. “Solas!” she screamed, but even her voice, too loud in ordinary company and down right terrifying in battle, as a whisper.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra's armor was ripped and split. The spiders slashed at her doggedly, biting her too.

“Cas! I can't-” Astlyr's sword fell out of her right hand with a splash. Her arms were both numb and pathetic. Like two weighted ropes hanging from her sagging shoulders. Only Cole remained. He fought on, though he seemed lost in his own world of slaughter. He did not look at Astlyr at all. She might as well have been swallowed up by the muck for all he seemed to notice her. Her voice, when she tried to use it again, was a sad, lonesome hiss from her lips.

Cole was becoming overwhelmed. He was bleeding from several places, his hat long since knocked off. She saw flashes of his blond hair mingled with splashes of crimson as he fought on. She put every ounce of what remained of her strength into calling his name. “Cole...” came the feeble sound.

Then, just as he was about to fall too, wounded severely in many places, he looked at her across the space between them. Their eyes met and locked, as though they held one another. “Astlyr,” he said, as if he was beside her, not yards away and swarmed by spiders. “Astlyr, wake up!”

She blinked. She wasn't standing in the thick waters of the mire. She stood before a grave, her sword and shield still in hand. Cole was beside her, staring up into her eyes, concern on his face. Concern for her as she had not seen from him in all the time she had known him. “What...?” she said, pushing back as few strands of free hair from her face.

“You were staring at that stone and seemed to be lost in deep thought,” Cassandra said. She was still standing beside her own grave stone, her dark eyes intense and watchful.

“Perhaps a memory?” Solas asked, moving closer into the yard for the first time. Astlyr had slowly been collecting memories as they had journeyed. Completing the picture of her past and the anchor.

“He found your fear,” Cole explained in his low, humble tone.

“My fear?” Astlyr looked down at the grave. The inscription, scored almost as deeply as Solas's had been read: Asltyr Adaar: Weakness.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone wanted to get to know Astlyr a little bit better. Plus, I had free time and short stories are what happens when I have free time.


End file.
